
Manor Lords
Hooded Horse
Manor Lords is a medieval strategy game featuring in-depth city building, large-scale tactical battles, and complex economic and social simulations. Rule your lands as a medieval lord – the seasons pass, the weather changes, and cities rise and fall.
Medieval strategy games can be a little hit or miss, and Manor Lords is definitely a hit. It gives you a village to care for and transform into a busy city by managing resources and going to war. This is still an Early Access game, but there’s already a good amount of content here.
The player is a medieval lord with control over an area of land and dreams of building it up. The story isn’t that important in a game like this, and it’s honestly not needed here.
Manor Lords is not just another medieval strategy game. It’s a meticulously crafted world that prioritizes historical accuracy, steering clear of the common medieval tropes that often misrepresent the era. This commitment to authenticity creates a gaming experience that feels more real and immersive than most other popular medieval strategy games, placing it in the same league as Banished in terms of realism.
Pros
Medieval city builder with free placement
Expand your village into a city
Authentic and realistic world
Highly strategic
Real-time tactical battles
Can name villagers after Twitch chat 🙂
Cons
Early access
Single player only
Frequent AI villager bugs
As a gridless city, players have full freedom over building placement and rotation to piece together a unique town. The building mechanics here are inspired by the growth of real villages, where trade routes, the landscape, and more affect how villages form and develop. There’s lots of careful decision-making in this game.
Like most other city builders, resources are critical and spread across the map. It requires the player to make hard decisions about expansion that could benefit the town or seriously harm it if done incorrectly.
While this is a single-player game, you aren’t the only lord. There are rival lords to compete with who also have expansion ambitions. You need to protect your land and lead your people into battle to grab new lands. Unit training is important, but losing loyal subjects is a terrible thing. Manor Lords uses real-time tactical battles with a lot to consider.
After 40 hours of playtime and countless giggles from naming villagers after Twitch chat, Manor Lords is undoubtedly a work in progress, but everything that I’ve played so far has not only given me a wonderful experience but shows fantastic signs of progress and a future that certainly looks bright. If you grew up with Age of Empires genre – you’ll love this game!